Chasing Pines
by AwkwardInfo
Summary: After having her life shattered right before her eyes, Pacifica tries to undo her mistakes by having the Pines help teach her how to be a nicer person. Slow Dipcifica.
1. The Prologue

If you asked Pacifica Northwest the other day if she would fight a ghost that had cursed her family name over 150 years ago would come back to haunt them and that the only way to get rid of said ghost was to team up with her kinda-sorta-arch-rival's nerdy twin brother, she would've called you crazy.

If you asked her right now...yeah, she'd probably still call you crazy.

She still wasn't even convinced it had happened herself. I mean, a ghost? They didn't exist. And even if they did, what did they have against her or her parents? Everyone else in Gravity Falls loved them. It didn't matter if some dead guy didn't like what they did. He was _dead. _Dead people don't come back to life.End of story. It couldn't have been real.

But the fear of being chased was real. The disappointment that her whole family was a fraud was real. The guilt she felt when she was called 'another link in the world's worst chain' was real. The trauma when she saw everyone who attended their party scream as they were turned to wood was real.

So why couldn't she just believe it?

Maybe it was because that was how she was brought up; unbelieving and uncaring. She remembered when she showed her parents that document stating that her great-great-grandfather didn't found the town. They looked it over in silence for a few minutes...and then they started laughing. Pacifica was utterly confused. Where was the joke? What was going on?

_Oh, Pazi. _Her father chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye. _Wherever did you find such...hilarity? Was it from that ugly man who runs the newspaper?_

_No, Dad, it's from those awful Pines twins! _She accused. _They said that Nathaniel was just an old, dumb farm boy! And that weird _boy _gave me this._

Her parents had finally finished their bout of laughter, giving their daughter a stern look. She knew that look. It usually meant either one of two things; she'd be getting herself another lesson on life from her father, or...

She shuddered at the second thought. Even after getting over that stupid bell, it still didn't mean that she was completely over the pain that it had caused her over her life.

Thankfully, it was the former rather than the latter. Her father kneeled down and put a hand on her shoulder, his expression unreadable. And when he opened his mouth, the words he spoke engraved themselves into her mind.

_Sweetie. _He said with a smile. _Don't you get it? It doesn't matter if this is true or not. This town can't do anything to hurt us, because we have money and they don't. They can think whatever they want about us. It won't change a thing. We'll still be rich, and they'll still be poor. That's the way the world works._

And they never spoke about it again.

At the time, Pacifica had just accepted it as fact. Even after having a huge bombshell like that thrown onto her, she still believed that the Northwests were good people. They had to be, because if they weren't, they wouldn't be rich. That was the philosophy she had grown up with, and it was what she had known since she was born.

At least, until the party.

After the mini-golf disaster that had occurred between her and the twins, she hadn't really spoken to them all that much, and never approached them whenever she did happen to catch a glimpse of them, trying to save face. Heck, she hadn't even bothered to remember their names; she just knew them as 'Sweater Girl' and 'Weird Boy'.

So when her father suggested that she pick the boy up to deal with their newfound ghost problem, she had been appalled. Her, a Northwest, asking for help by..._commonfolk?! _It was absurd that her father had even come up with the plan.

Yet, her father insisted, and she (reluctantly) went down to the hovel they called a house to ask them to get rid of the ghost.

She didn't think that her entire life would change in that one singular night, but somehow, it had. She had went from a Northwest who followed all the rules and always abided her parents to...well, what she was now.

And the weird thing was, she kinda liked it. And hated it. At the same time.

She hated that her family was all a fake. It hurt, realizing that everything she thought she knew about them was caused by lies, or cheating someone out of a deal. It made her feel dirty, because it seemed like she was just going to continue that trend, just like her parents wanted her to.

But she didn't want to be like them. She wanted to change, and be someone else, someone who was actually _good _for a change, but she didn't know how. She didn't even know if she _could _at this point. Was it too late? Was she too far gone? Was there no help to save her from becoming who she was meant to be?

She sighed, rubbing her forehead in frustration. She couldn't deal with these thoughts right now. It was the middle of the night, and she needed to get her beauty sleep. After all, a Northwest cannot look tir-

_No! _She scolded herself angrily. _I don't care about being a Northwest! I want to be _me!

She flopped out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, hoping that it would have some of the answers to her problems.

And yet, there was nothing.

She groaned, her head turning out to the window beside her bed. Lifting up the blinds, she looked out upon the forests of Gravity Falls. The pines gently swayed with the movement of the winds, the shadows dancing on the freshly trimmed grass of the mansion's lawn. The moon beamed over the earth below, illuminating the world in its ghostly glow. The stars twinkled in the night sky, seemingly taunting her, shining just above her head, unable to be reached.

She chuckled. It was pretty ironic. She had probably every single thing her had ever needed in her life given to her, but the things that she actually wanted were what she would probably never get.

Watching those stars reminded her of Dipper. She hadn't known much about him before the whole ghost thing. All she knew was that he was the twin to her arch-rival and that he caused weird things to happen. If that wasn't enough to make her hate him, he was the one who started untangling how awful her family was with that document about who the town founder was. If he hadn't been there, she would have been comfortable in believing what she had been told her entire life. She should be angry, accuse him of the fake document, slander, and every other crime in the book, and get him and his family sued and possibly even arrested. It would be so simple and easy to just tell them what they had done to her...

...and yet, she couldn't.

After everything that had happened between them in the mansion, it made her sick to her stomach to do anything to hurt him. He had saved her life, and she may have save his by pulling that lever, she still felt like she was indebted to him. She had insulted him and his family on multiple occasions.

Maybe it was time for her to help fix that.

Tomorrow, she was going to go over to that Shack, and find some way to help undo that feeling in her gut every time she thought about the Pines.

Perhaps then, she'll feel better.

Laying down on her bed, she closed her eyes, thinking of how she was going to explain why she had come over there again.


	2. The Walk

Pacifica had no way of explaining why she was over there again.

It obviously wasn't _her _fault that she hadn't come up with a reason for being there again. As she laid down to try and think of a decent enough excuse, the exhaustion from staying up so late finally caught up to her, and within about 5 minutes, she was out like a light. It wasn't until after she had gotten done with her daily rountine and she was near the Shack that she realized her mistake.

As she approached the building, she began to wonder what had made her think this place was a hovel. Sure, it wasn't exactly as big or as beautiful as Northwest Manor, but that didn't mean that it wasn't nice. Being out in the woods was gave it a certain rustic appeal, with the smell of the pines resonating through the air, and the rundown look, whether intentional or not, added to the mystery of the aptly named Mystery Shack. Perhaps when she got older and inherited her family's fortune, she could build a little vacation house near here.

She held back a laugh. That was only _if _she inherited her family's fortune. From the way things were going with her parents now, she'd be happy to get even a penny of what they owned. She had disobeyed them, and let in a bunch of common folk into their party just because a ghost threatened to burn down their mansion. If she had really been a Northwest, she would have dove into their safe room and waited till everything had burned down around her. Sure, they wouldn't have a house anymore, but they were rich. They could live out near one of their many vacation homes until they either rebuilt or decided to move somewhere else. It would've been so easy...

So easy, and yet so hard.

Because things had changed. She wasn't the same young valley girl stereotype that she had been. She used to not care about other people's well-being. She flaunted money around like it was nothing. She had been a jerk who didn't care if what she said or did hurt someone. That was how she had lived, and no one opposed her.

But the Pines twins had helped open her eyes, and see things from their point of view. They may have been drastically different, but they were different nonetheless. They had made her feel like Pacifica, an individual person, instead of a Northwest, like she had always been.

And that was why she was going to them, because without them, she probably wouldn't have ever given this place a second thought.

She hesitantly approached the door, raising a shaky hand clenched in a fist. Why was she so nervous? She had never felt this way before about...well, anything really, so why was she feeling this way now? Was she sick? Did the Pines accidentally infect her with some kind of...poor people disease? Is that why she was so scared?

_Maybe I should go... _She thought to herself, lowering her hand. _They probably don't want to talk to me after what I've done to them..._

_No, you can't! _Another voice in her head cried out in fear. _You need to get help, and they are probably the best choice you have to getting better._

_Even when I insulted the both of them multiple times on more than one occasion?_

_Well, no...but you can still ask them anyway!_

_Then what? Are they gonna wave some magic wand around my head and suddenly make me a better person?_

_It's better than being who you are now!_

_Eww, gross! I do _not _want them putting any magical things in my brain. Maybe I can find something else to fix myself. I think I saw something in that weird nerd book of Dipper's about some kind of cave in the woods that can help. I could try looking for that. Or maybe I can-_

"Ugh! Would you shut _up, _brain!" She exclaimed, slamming her head into the door in frustration.

It took her about 3 seconds to realize her mistake.

"Uh oh."

"Dipper, can you get the door?"

"Why do I have to get it? You heard it the same time as I did."

"Because I'm too busy bedazzling Waddles! I have to keep redoing it because he keeps chewing it off!"

"What?!"

"Stop squabbling, you two! I'm trying to watch Baby Fights! Dipper, go get the door."

"Why can't you get it?"

"Because this chair is too comfortable and I'm an old man. Now go get the door!"

"Ugh, fine..." Dipper grumbled to himself as he slowly staggered his way over to the door.

And he froze as he saw who it was behind it.

She did the same.

They stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time, both of them equally shocked and confused as to what they wanted to say. How could they? Sure, they weren't exactly _friends, _but they couldn't really be classified as enemies either, with what happened at the mansion. They were in some kind of inbetween at the moment, a limbo of sorts, where they knew who they were, yet didn't really care if anything happened to them or not. Which made Pacifica wonder why she was doing this in the first place all over again.

_Because they're nice. _She said to herself. _Because they helped you, even after you made fun of their family to their face or behind their backs. Because they're good people, and they try to fix someone when they see them hurting. Because they're-_

"Pacifica?" Dipper finally asked in a very confused and shocked tone as he found his voice. "W-What are you doing here?"

And as she stared back into his eyes, her eyes glistening in the summer sun, the dam of tears she had been holding back ever since the party almost broken, he knew.

Something was very, very wrong.

She opened her mouth, and the words tumbled out before she even knew she had said them.

"I need your help..."


	3. The Sundae

Dipper needed to find some ice cream.

Oh, not for him. Everyone knew that Mabel had absorbed both of their sweet teeth when they were born. She could probably eat enough sugar to kill a small herd of fully grown elephants before she even started to feel sick.

No, this was for Pacifica.

When he opened the door and saw her nearly break down right in front of him, he quickly urged her inside so that anyone who was outside didn't see Miss Gravity Falls crying at the doorstep of the biggest crook in town. After calling for Mabel for emotional support and practically begging Stan to close down the Shack (which he did, begrudgingly), he had went to the kitchen to find some kind of sweet food for her to eat. From what he had learned from every movie ever made, whenever girls were upset, they would always get real emotional and eat ice cream. He knew that Mabel always had an emergency sundae in the freezer, just in case she got ravenous in the middle of the night, so he took that. He'd apologize to her later, but right now, Pacifica needed it more than she did.

He went back into the living room, where Pacifica was sitting with Mabel, who was trying her best to get whatever was going on with her out in the open. Dipper had sent her to his twin for a reason; if there was anybody who was great at social situations and helping get things out of people, it was Mabel.

But it seemed Pacifica was having none of it.

She was sitting on the recliner, her head facing downwards with her bangs covering her eyes. She wasn't slumped over, per se, but he assumed that was probably due to years of being told how it was "rude" or something. She wasn't crying, or if she was, she was holding it in very well. It was almost as if she weren't alive, but her slow breathing and the way she fiddled with her hands showed that she was.

She was very quiet, which was very unusual for her, because Mabel was sitting next to her, rambling on about who knows what, and she hadn't retorted or insulted her in any way. They may have been on good terms, but she was still Pacifica Northwest, and she would make fun of you no matter what.

Whatever was going on, it was bad. And he had seen bad. This wasn't some kind of supernatural bad.

This was real life bad.

"...boo." A voice whispered into his ear.

Dipper screamed, his voice cracking in a tone high enough that only dogs could hear. He closed his eyes in fright, ready to be taken away by whatever creature had gotten him.

Then the wheels in his brain started turning.

Then he heard laughter. Evil, diabolical laughter. There was only one person who had a laugh like that...

Mabel.

"Ohh, that was hilarious!" She exclaimed, wiping a tear from her eye. "You jumped, like, 30 feet in the air! HA!"

"Really, Mabel?" Dipper grumbled, slightly annoyed (and a little bit embarrassed) by how his twin wasn't taking things seriously like he was.

"Aww, c'mon, lighten up!" Mabel chastised playfully. "You were too busy using your big nerd brain again. I had to snap you out of it before your head got all wrinkly."

"You could have just told me that instead of scaring me half to death."

"Where's the fun in that?" Mabel asked, giving Dipper a little punch on the arm. "Besides, it was too good of a chance to pass up. I got a good laugh out of that...and apparently, so did someone else." She glanced over at the recliner, gesturing Dipper to do the same.

Pacifica was giggling.

Granted, it looked very odd, at first. She looked like she was convulsing a bit, and the way she was breathing made it seem like a mix between laughing and crying (perhaps both, given how emotional she was at the moment), but over time, you could definitely hear a few chuckles, slowly getting louder and louder. After a while, Mabel joined back in with her, and later Dipper did as well. Soon enough, all 3 kids were practically dying of laughter, no one entirely sure why they were, but not wanting to stop, either.

Eventually, though, things did calm down a bit. Once everyone started to regain their composure and catch their breath, Dipper offered the sundae. "Want some ice cream?" He asked, a small, hopeful grin on his face.

Pacifica grimaced a bit, her face contorting in disgust. "I'm not supposed to have sweets on the weekdays."

"Yeah, Dipper," Mabel said through gritted teeth, clearly upset about not being informed about this earlier. "So why don't you just give it to me so I can eat-I mean...put it back in the freezer."

Both Dipper and Pacifica gave her blank stares, neither one of them trusting what she had to say.

Mabel sighed heavily. "Yeah, nevermind..."

"Anyway..." Dipper continues, turning his attention back to Pacifica. "Why don't you want it? Your parents won't know if you cheat have a little sugar every now and then."

Pacifica still doesn't seem convinced. "But won't I get, like, morbidly obese if I eat that?"

"Pfft!" Mabel blows a raspberry. "Don't sweat it, Pazi!"

"Pazi?" Pacifica murmurs to Dipper, who shrugs.

"I eat sugar all the time, and look at me!" Mabel gives a smile, puffing her cheeks out. "Cute as a button, like always!"

"Also starting to look more like Waddles." Dipper grumbled, rolling his eyes, earning a small snicker from Pacifica.

"Exactly! Being fatty makes you happy!" Mabel coins, throwing off the insults like they were nothing. "Trademark Mabel Pines."

Pacifica giggled again, feeling a whole lot better than she had before. "Alright, alright...give it here."

Dipper cautiously raised his eyebrow, giving her a questioning look. "Give it here..?"

"Now? Before I sue those little boy shorts off of you?"

"No, the right thing to say is 'please'." Mabel corrected, then whispered. "But you are right about those little boy shorts."

"Hey!"

"Shh, bro-bro! The ladies are talking here." Mabel shushed her brother, who was still a bit annoyed (and embarrassed) at the blow, grumbling at how they were the only shorts he could find that fit.

Pacifica frowned at the remark, a sad sigh escaping her throat. "I'm sorry. Can I please have some of your poor people food?"

Dipper blinked, surprised at her response. "Umm...sure." He nodded, handing her the ice cream.

Pacifica took the sundae, picking up the spoon and eating some. It was decent enough, nothing like many of the other rich people food she had so gotten used to. She hummed in contentment, feeling the cold treat calming her nerves, if only a little.

Then she realized no one was talking.

Then she realized that the twins were staring at her.

"What?" She asked, her mouth full, which garnered no response from either of the two. She swallowed, before laying the cup down. "Is it that weird that I'm actually eating food that your kind have, like, every other day?"

"No, no, it's not that..." Dipper said, his voice quiet.

"Then what is it? You better tell me, Pines, before I _actually _sue the pants off of you!"

"It's just..." Dipper trailed off, before continuing, "I don't really think I've ever heard you apologize before..."

Pacifica blinked. "Oh." She replied lamely, not really sure how to respond to a statement like that.

"It's not like we're saying it's a bad thing!" Mabel chimed in. "It's just that it's a little bit...different, is all."

"No, no, I get it." Pacifica raised a hand to stop them from continuing. "I'm a sucky person who doesn't know how to be normal. I get it."

"That's not it at all!" Dipper reprimanded. "It was just...unexpected."

"Oh, that I don't know how to say something like 'I'm sorry'? Well, guess what?" She asked, standing up from the recliner. "You're right! I don't! Just like I don't know how to say 'sharing' or 'please' or all those other peasant words that you guys use!"

"Pacifica..." Mabel said, trying to get her attention.

"Or how I'm not good at trying to help people. Sure, I may have saved everyone at the party, but I still got in trouble for it!"

"Pacifica, please..."

"Or how I'm not even near as decent of a person as you two are, because you would help anyone, even if they didn't deserve it, and because you actually know how to be proper, real human beings!"

"PACIFICA!"

The heiress finally stopped her rambling, breathing heavily from her outburst. She turned her gaze over to Mabel, narrowing her eyes at the girl.

_"What?"_ She growled icily, fists clenched and teeth grit into a terrible scowl, not happy that she had been interrupted from her speech.

"Pacifica...you're crying."

"What?" She scoffed, unable to believe such a terrible excuse. She reached up her face, ready to prove the girl wrong. "I'm not cry..."

She trailed off as her fingers felt something wet beneath her left eye.

Taking her hand away, she glanced down at her fingertips.

They were glistening in the light of the room, just barely noticeable, but still showing, nonetheless. There were traces of a bit of purple and black as well, most likely from the eyeliner and eyeshadow that she had gotten from her parents from Paris on her birthday during one of their monthly business trips.

There was no denying it. She _had _been crying.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as the Pines twins kept their distance away from the girl, unsure of how she would react. Would she get angry again? Would she fall apart in front of them? Would she try start accusing them of brainwashing her? They had no idea what was going to happen.

After about 15 seconds of waiting for her to say something, Mabel finally pulled up enough courage to say something.

"Are you alright, Paz-"

"This was stupid."

Well, _that _was something they didn't expect.

"What?" Dipper asked, confused, thinking that he had heard her wrong.

"I said this was stupid." The tone in her voice wasn't very clear. She didn't sound annoyed, or upset, or angry, or...anything. It was just sort of...monotone. There was no emotion, like she didn't care or really know what she was saying.

And that made what she was saying even worse.

"Pazi..." Mabel said sadly, not really getting what was happening.

"Nope, I'm done." Rummaging around in her pockets, the Northwest found her wallet, taking out a few hundred dollar bills. "Here's some cash. Pretend like this never happened."

"Pacifica..." Dipper grumbled, starting to get a little angry. She finally confessed what has been going on and why they haven't seen each other in the last couple of days, and now she's _leaving? _Nope, something was definitely wrong, and she wasn't telling them what it was.

Seeing that no one was going to take the money from her, she placed it down on the weird dinosaur skull table...thing. After feeling that she was successful in her task, she turned around, ready to leave. "I'll see you two losers later. Don't talk to me."

_Oh, no, she is not getting away that easily. _Dipper thought, his hand clenching into a tight fist.

Pacifica made her way to the door, raising her hand to open it, hoping to forget that this entire experience never happened...

...and then she felt a hand turn her back around.

Ok, _now _she was mad.

"Let go of me, you stupid, poor, dirty little-" Her voice abruptly stopped as she saw who it was looking at her...or rather, _how_ he was looking at her.

Dipper.

The way he held her was awkward and very uncomfortable, with his arm twisted backwards and her hand nearly touching his own. It kind of hurt both of them the way they were positioned, but the way they looked at each other numbed the pain enough for them to not focus on that.

Dipper had his face contorted into an aggressive sneer, his teeth grit tightly, eyes ablaze in a righteous fury that wasn't contained all too well, hair flung partially revealing...something. Pacifica couldn't really tell what it was exactly.

She knew that face. She had seen it when he when he faced off against the ghost at the mansion, at her parents when he had found out the it had all been a trick...and at her, when he actually thought she had gotten better as a person.

It hurt. A lot.

She thought back to every little bad thing she could remember, whether it was as small as a bad word behind someone's back to insults she threw at someone's face. The guilt that she felt grew more and more, making her squirm in her skin. She felt like a hollow shell of her former self, finally feeling the consequences of everything she had done so far in her life.

She didn't want to feel that way anymore.

She wanted to get _better._

"Pacifica." Dipper said sternly, glaring into her eyes fiercely.

"Let us help you."

She could break from his grasp. She could run back to her mansion with her parents, forgetting that all of this had never even happened. She could avoid thinking about either of them in any sort of positive light, only with a cold glare and an even colder dismissal of their attempts to help her.

She could do all of that.

But she wouldn't.

Pacifica Elise Northwest was going to change, whether the world liked it or not.

"Okay."


	4. The Talk

"So, when did this all start?"

"Really? Are you really gonna start off with that? What are you, a psychiatrist?"

Great, they weren't even in the first minute and she was already annoying him to no end.

Dipper sighed. "Well, how else am I supposed to figure out what's wrong?"

Pacifica glared at the younger twin. "I don't know, maybe with some other, non-clichéd line like that?" She asked, adjusting herself in the recliner.

After Pacifica's failed dramatic exit from the Shack, Dipper had lead her back to the living room with Mabel, and after gathering a few supplies from around the house, the siblings were ready to help listen to whatever the blonde girl had to say. Unfortunately, it didn't really seem to be going all too well so far.

"C'mon, Pazi!" Mabel exclaimed, notepad in hand. "We're just trying to help you get better!"

"Mabel, the only thing in your notes is a tic-tac-toe game that you're playing with Waddles." Dipper pointed out.

"Yeah, and it's pretty difficult!" She cast her brother a dirty look. "I think he still has some of that smart brain juice still in him."

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about." Pacifica said blankly.

"It doesn't matter." Dipper shook his head, pinching his brow in annoyance. "What does matter, though, is what's going on with _you. _What're you even doing here? Why did you come here?" He paused before asking the next question.

"What's wrong?"

The sad, abosolutely pitiful face that he put on nearly got her to break right then. His eyes were baring into her soul, so full of care that her heart nearly burst from her chest. He looked like a little lost puppy, not wanting their owner to go to work so they could stay at home and play with them. She wanted to wipe that cute look off of his stupid face.

Wait, did she just say he was _cute?!_

_Nope, nope, stay focused, Pacifica. _She told herself. _Hold your ground._

"Fine. I'll tell you."

_That is definitely not holding your ground._

The young girl sighed, keeping her gaze on the floor. She couldn't believe that she was doing this. When had she become so weak and fragile? A few days ago, she never would've even thought about telling anyone her doubts about her family. Not that she had any; she knew her family was perfect.

But that was before she found the room hidden behind the wall.

That was before she found out about her family's real history.

That was before her entire life fell apart.

"Pacifica?"

Glancing up from the spot on the spot on the carpet that she _really _hoped was just soda, she found herself looking back into Dipper's face again. There were things that she hadn't noticed before about it, like the way his hair was sort of flopped over his forehead, like he was trying to hide a bald spot. Or how his eyes had little dark bags under them.

_Probably from reading all those nerd books. _She thought to herself with a chuckle.

"Hello? Earth to Pacifica? Is anybody home?"

Pacifica shook herself out of her daze, forgeting what she was doing here.

_Here we go..._

"Okay, seriously, are you just going to ignore me now, or-"

"It was after the party." She said suddenly, making the boy jump a little in fright.

"My parents were...upset, to say the least. Once everybody left, they sent all the butlers home, which they _never _do. I already knew that something bad was about to happen.

The two siblings listened intently, both seemingly on the edge of their seats in anticipation.

"They sent me to my room, and said they would be up there in a minute after they discussed what they were gonna do to me. I've, like, never been so scared about anything in my entire life. Even that time I had my hair frizz up when we down to Georgia to open up some kind of factory." She shuddered. "Gosh, that place was _so _awful."

"Yeah, can we, um, continue with the story, please?" Dipper asked impatiently, wanting to get down to the bottom of the whole situation.

Pacifica gave him a stony glare, but continued. "When they came back up from talking, they had decided on my punishment." The young girl gave a gulp as she began to describe what had transpired over those next few moments. "D-daddy scolded me terribly. Told me I wasn't fit to be a Northwest. Mom just stood there, shaking her head at me." She paused, wiping away some of the sweat on her brow. "Th-then they started blaming you two for it, saying that you were a 'bad influence' or something like that." She took a deep breath, shaking a little. "I-I t-t-tried to tell them that th-they were wr-wrong. Th-that you two weren't as bad as we th-thought they were, but they weren't listening to me."

"Then Daddy started reaching into his suit jacket..."

"No." Mabel gasped in shock, her mind already coming to the worst conclusion.

"I saw his hand grab something, but I didn't know what it was at the time..."

"H-he didn't..." Dipper mumbled, his eyes wide with fear.

"A-and then...a-a-and then-"

The two twins grasped themselves in fright, wincing with their eyes closed, waiting for Pacifica to continue.

And waited...

And waited...

And waited...

Dipper peaked his eye open, wondering why the girl wasn't telling them what happened next, only to see said girl giving him and Mabel and angry stare.

"Can you _please _not cower in fear in front of me? I already get enough of that from being with my parents, that you very much."

"What?" Dipper asked in confusion releasing his hold on his sister.

"I was just going to say that Daddy pulled out his phone, that's all."

"What?" Dipper repeated, dumbfounded.

"Jeez, are you really _that _poor that you don't even know what a _phone _is?"

"No, I know what a phone is." Dipper grumbled to her, his confusion being replaced with annoyance.

"Then what is it?" The rich girl asked, crossing her arms.

"W-well..." Mabel spoke up, as Pacifica turned her attention to the sweater wearing girl, who cringed a bit at the look. "W-we just thought that your dad was gonna...you know..." She made a slapping motion with her hand.

Pacifica's mouth fell open. "Ohh...OHH." Her eyes widened as she realized what she may have been implying. But just as soon as she figured it out, he face contorted in disgust. "Eww, gross!" She cringed. "Daddy would, like, never lay a hand on me!" She scoffed, unable to believe her father would do a thing like that. "How do you think I have such a perfect face?"

Dipper and Mabel sighed, feeling a bit more calm knowing that she hadn't been abused by her own family.

"If he did, he wouldn't have come in the room. One of the butlers would have to do it."

The looks on their faces were absolutely priceless.

"Jeez, I'm kidding! Gosh, you guys are so gullible!" Pacifica laughed, wiping a tear from her eye from her incredibly dark joke.

Mabel punched her in the shoulder. "Don't say stuff like that, Pazi! That was terrible!"

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry!" The blonde apologized, rubbing her arm. "I didn't think you guys cared that much about it."

"Wait..." Dipper scratched his head, still confused. "If you weren't getting hit, then why were you so upset about your dad pulling out his phone?"

Pacifica's breath hitched. She had hoped that her little "joke" would make them forget, but that didn't seem to be the case. "Because...because..."

"Because he cancelled my credit cards! All of them!"

The young girl trembled and cried, waiting to hear the comfort of the twins to make her feel better. Instead, she was surprised when she got nothing.

Now it was her turn to be confused. "Wh-why aren't you guys c-c-crying?" Pacifica asked through her shaking.

"Pacifica..." Dipper muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We don't even _have _credit cards."

"Do you know how many times I've asked Mom and Dad for one?" Mabel asked, feeling slightly annoyed. "Too many! And they _still _won't give me one!"

"Alright! I get it!" Pacifica huffed. "You guys don't know how to react properly when something absolutely terrible happens."

"Or maybe we just aren't rich like you."

"Hey, shut it, boy shorts!"

"Both of you, be quiet!" Mabel yelled, gaining both their attention. Reluctantly, they turned away, both with scowls on their faces.

"Please continue, Pazi."

"Don't call me that."

"Do you want me to call you by your last name?"

"...Point taken."

Pacifica took another breath, and then continued. "So, Daddy tells me that he...did that." She shuddered again. "And then gave me another punishment; I couldn't go shopping for _one full day. _It was awful! I couldn't believe him!"

"So he tells me that I'm not allowed to go out tomorrow and see anyone, probably so that everyone would forget that Pacifica Northwest had done something that _wasn't _completely selfish or terrible." She grimaced. "But that wasn't the worst part about it."

"Oh, really?" Dipper asked sarcastically. "What else did he do, take away your phone?"

"Yes, but that's besides the point!" Pacifica fired back, still annoyed at the boy.

"What else happened, Pazi?" Mabel questioned, punching her brother for being mean to their guest.

Pacifica gulped, feeling a bit uncomfortable as she explained what happened next. "So, do you guys remember the day after the party?"

The twins exchanged glances with each other, unsure what that had to do with anything. "Umm, not really?" Dipper responded with a raised eyebrow.

"Really? Everybody was talking about what happened." Pacifica said, surprised.

"No, what happened?"

"Y'know, the whole gravity going out and everything floating in the air?"

"Ohh, right!" Mabel gasped, everything coming back to her. "Yeah, we may have been a bit...busy that day..."

"...Right." Pacifica nodded slowly. There wasn't any real point in asking questions. The Pines family was weird.

"So what happened?" Dipper asked, trying to piece together what was going on. "What was so bad that you had to come here to tell us about it?"

Pacifica looked down, trying to hide the embarrassed blush that was slowly filling her cheeks. "You guys promise me that you won't laugh?"

"Cross my heart!" Mabel exclaimed. A silence filled the room until Mabel gave her brother a jab in the side, snapping him out of his daze.

"Oh, yeah! Me too." Dipper groaned, rubbing his sore spot. "Thanks, Mabel."

"You're welcome!"

Pacifica giggled at the two, feeling a bit better than before. She took a shaky breath, still incredibly nervous about telling them about what she had been through. After this, there was no going back for her.

_Let's just get this over with._

"So I was sitting in my room, basically bored out of my mind, since I didn't really have anything to do. I couldn't talk to my rich friends, because Daddy took my phone away. Meanwhile, they were at the airport, frivolously apologizing to everyone who went to the party and gave them a small loan so they wouldn't tell any potential business partners about how much of a disaster it was. Overall, it seemed like nothing too terrible was happening."

"I was considering going to my parents' room to get steal my phone back when suddenly, everything started floating around me. First it was just pens and picture frames on my desk, but then I felt _myself _getting lifted up into the air."

"It felt...odd, to say the least. There was this moment of exhilaration at first, that I actually had control of my weight or something like that. It was weird, but...I kinda liked it, in a way."

"Then it all went downhill."

"When gravity came back, I was terrified. I had thought I had gotten the hang of flying around my room and stuff, so I hadn't realized that I had been moving around on my own."

"I hit the ground really hard. I always knew that Daddy was gonna regret getting hard wood floors. Everything in the house had broken when he came back. I got a big laugh out of that."

"Okay, skip to the point, already." Dipper deadpanned.

The young girl scowled at the boy before continuing. "Anyway, when everything came back down, I had landed in front of my desk, and that desk had a picture of me, Mom and Dad on our big cruise to Dubai a few years ago. So, after it went flying in the air for a while, it just so happened to fall right in front of me."

"Now, the thing with our family is that why only get the best of the best, for everything. Best clothes, best toys, best TVs, best food, you name it. So, naturally, we always got the best picture frames for our pictures, which always meant that the glass that we get would have to be top-notch."

"The picture was lying face-down when it fell, so I decided to pick it up and put it back in its rightful place."

"What I expected was the picture, just the way it was supposed to..."

"What I didn't expect was the crack."

"I don't know if we got some rip-off brand that pretended to be a picture framing company, or if the glass that they used was too thin or whatever, but the thing that really got to me was how where the crack was..."

"Right down the middle..."

"Between me and my parents..."

The twins mouths fell open in utter shock as Pacifica looked away in fear, not wanting to see her as she started to cry.

"I couldn't handle the stress anymore. I broke down, right then and there on the dirty floor. That was the universe's way of telling me that I had broken what little bond I had between me and my own family. I was never going to be a Northwest after I had exposed what frauds they were. There was no going back from what I had done."

"But what really hit me hard was the fact that I was all alone."

Pacifica sniveled, tears starting to well up as she tried to keep going.

"I d-didn't have any f-friends to talk to, since they would've p-probably just laughed in my f-face. I couldn't talk to M-mom and Dad for obvious reasons. The b-butlers probably thought I was just a buttface."

"I had no one to help me."

Pacifica grabbed her face and started to bawl into her hands, trying to muffle the sounds of her sobbing from the Pines.

She couldn't believe how weak she was, confessing all of her deep, dark fears to these two weirdos that she barely even knew at all. She shouldn't have come here. She should have stayed at home and kept these thoughts to herself so that maybe sometime down the road she could forget about them and reconcile with her family and they could all be happy again and everything would be back to normal and-.

"Pacifica?"

A small voice made her pause from her wallowing in self-pity. Begrudgingly, she looked up from her mascara covered hands to look at who had spoken to her.

To her surprise, it wasn't Mabel who had said it; it was Dipper.

He had somehow gotten up from his chair without her knowledge and was now kneeling down in front of her, staring up at her. His eyes showed empathy, a feat that was very rarely seen coming from the boy. He reached over and grabbed one of her shoulders, giving it a small squeeze to show that he was there. He took a deep breath and said something that broke her heart.

"I'm sorry."

She couldn't help herself. She practically jumped into his arms.

Dipper, unable to support the sudden weight added by the crying girl, fell backwards onto the carpet, his eyes wide in surprise. Pacifica wrapped her arms around him as she began to cry into his shoulder, latching his arms to his sides. Unable to properly return the hug back to her, Dipper settled for just stiffly rubbing the smalls of her back, going in a clockwise circle for each of them.

"Shh..." He shushed awkwardly, not really sure how to comfort her. "It's okay...I'm here. I'm right here."

A flash of a camera struck him out his dazed state as he heard a whirring of a photo being printed out. He glanced over to see that it was Mabel, grinning hugely with a mischievous look in her eyes.

"Scrapbook-ortunity!" She whisper-yelled, giving a subdued, giddy squeal.

"Mabel!" Dipper groaned in exasperation.

He didn't have much more time to complain before the girl finally let him go, a slight but still noticeable blush around her cheeks as the realization about what she had done dawned on her.

Dipper, who was also blushing, just motorboated as he cleared his throat. "Are we gonna, y'know, pretend like that never happened?"

"Totally." Pacifica replied, wiping her bangs away from her face.

An awkward silence held in the air as the trio just waited for someone to do something. Finally, Pacifica stood up, brushing away some of the dust that had permeated on her clothes.

"Well, I guess that was the most uncomfortable experience of my entire life so far." She announced. "I'm going to go home and take a long, cold shower and try to hopefully subdue this horrible memory into the darkest places of my subconscious. I'll see you losers later."

"Pacifica, wait!"

She paused, turning her head as she looked to the poor boy addressing her. "What?" She asked, without her usual bite in her tone.

Dipper shuffled his way over, rubbing the back of his neck as he purposefully avoided her gaze. "Do you wanna...I don't know...join me and Mabel for some kind of mystery hunt thing we were planning tomorrow?"

Pacifica crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at the younger twin. "And just what makes you think that I would want to go on some kind of adventure with the likes of you two?" She wondered with a raised eyebrow.

Dipper gulped, fearful of the heiress's rejection. "Well, cause...y'know...that's what friends do?"

Pacifica's eyes widened as he said the word 'friends'. Were they actually friends now? Does hugging count as a friend thing? She had no idea about anything at this point, but there was one thing that she did know, and that was that this boy asked very stupid questions.

"Sure."

Dipper, taken aback by the response that he definitely was _not _expecting, gave a small, "R-really?"

"Yeah, whatever." Pacifica said, trying to act like she didn't care. "Beats sitting at the mall or the mansion."

"O-okay, cool! I-I'll see you at 10:00 AM tomorrow-"

"11:00 AM."

"-11:00 AM tomorrow!" Dipper finished with a smile, sweating as he slowly backed away before running up the stairs to the attic, presumably packing for the trip he was about to take. Pacifica giggled. He was such a dork.

"Wait!"

Pacifica saw Mabel run to her, a photograph of some kind in her hand.

"This...is...for you..." She gasped out, clearly out of breath.

"Umm...ok?" Pacifica questioned, putting the photo in her pocket, noting to herself to wipe it off when she got home. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just...just tired from running..." Mabel wheezed, hands on her knees as she took gulps of oxygen.

"Right..." Pacifica awkwardly nodded. "Well, tell your brother I'm gone and that I'll be back at 11:00 AM tomorrow!"

"Alright, I will! See you then!" Mabel grinned, weakly giving her a wave goodbye.

"Bye."

"Bye, Pazi!"

Pacifica smiled. The nickname was starting to grow on her.


	5. The Start

Should I have changed?

That was the thought as she approached for the third time that month, which she still couldn't believe. Normally, she would never visit under any circumstances whatsoever, unless it was some kind of special event (such as the Mystery Shack party.) so she could flaunt her family's wealth and send all the partygoers to an after party so they could collect even more of their money so they could repeat the process all over again.

Gosh, was she always that shallow before she met the twins?

Yes, I was. She scolded herself. But I'm getting help. That's gotta mean something, right?

She sure hoped it did. She couldn't imagine herself going back to her old life, being a butthole to anyone who wasn't rich or popular enough to talk to her.

She was going to change, by gosh, or die trying.

She silently hoped for the former rather than the latter. She was hanging out with the Pines family after all.

Anything could happen.

"Pazi!"

The sudden squealing of her name and the feeling of another body slamming into her own nearly terrified her half to death. She was about to beat the person who tackled her to full death with her bare fists when she realized it was just Mabel.

"You came! You actually came!" The overenthused girl exclaimed, pinning Pacifica's arms to her sides as she gave her a big bear hug.

Pacifica went stiff as a board, still getting over the shock of being knocked of her feet. She noticed Dipper chuckling behind his sister, a grin plastered on his face, a hand trying to hide the obvious.

"Right..." She finally managed to reply. She gave a little squirm. "Can we maybe do this when we're standing up?"

"Oh, sorry!" Mabel nodded, removing her arms from the blonde girl as she got to her feet. "I just still can't believe you actually came!"

"Well, I didn't have anything better to do, so I thought, 'Why not?'" Pacifica tried to blow it off as not a big deal. She didn't know if she did well or not.

"Need a hand?" Dipper asked, stretching out his hand.

Pacifica scoffed, turning her head away from the hand. "I can handle myself!" She said, starting to push herself off the ground.

"Pacifica..." Mabel chastised, giving a stern look to the young blonde, frowning.

The guilt she felt was immense, but she had known how to hide behind a front before.

With a roll of her eyes, Pacifica gave a murmur of agreement as she begrudgingly took the boy's hand. She was surprised at how powerful his pull was as she was lifted off the grass. Whether it was because of his adventuring or if he had just overcompensated to lift her up, she was impressed that he even had the capacity to pick her up with those noodle arms of his.

He pulled her into a standing position before letting go of her hand and checking her over for injuries, well acquainted with Mabel's roughhousing nature. Her clothes were wrinkled and covered in many grass stains, but luckily he didn't see any cuts and bruises. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask, just in case he couldn't see it.

"Are you alrigh-"

"I'm fine." Pacifica grumbled through gritted teeth, facing away from the young boy, intentionally avoiding his gaze.

"Now what do we say, Pacifica?" Mabel asked, a teasing smile adorning her face.

Pacifica gave her a chilling glare, before turning her attention back to Dipper.

"Thank you..." She whispered, barely audible.

"I'm sorry, what?" Dipper asked, cupping his ear with his hand.

"I said thank you." She said a little louder.

"I still can't hear you, what did you say?" He chided playfully, trying to hide his snickering and failing horribly.

So, he wanted her to be louder?

Ohh, she'd give him louder, alright. And some tinnitus to go along with it.

"I SAID THANK YOU!" Pacifica screamed, right into the boy's eardrum.

Dipper jumped back, his head throbbing as he covered his now ringing ear.

"Yep, I'm pretty sure I deserved that" He admitted, trying to shake out most of the noise still going around in his brain.

"Ha ha! Good one, Pazi!" Mabel commended, patting her on the shoulder. "The old 'scream-in-the-ear' trick. Gets him every time."

"WHAT?!"

"Nothing, Dip-Dop!"

Sticking a finger in his ear to make sure it wasn't bleeding (she had been a lot louder up close than he expected her to be), he turned his gaze back over to Pacifica.

"Thanks for that." He mumbled, giving her a glare.

"I'm sorry, what?" She playfully asked, a wicked grin on her face.

"Oh, ha, ha! Very funny."

"Aww, thank you! I try so hard."

Dipper rolled his eyes playfully before reaching into his vest, pulling out a very familiar journal.

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Pacifica said as she laid eyes on the book. "You didn't tell me that we were going on another ghost hunt! I do not want to do anything that makes me rethink my life again!"

"What?" Dipper wondered, before putting the pieces together in his head. "Oh, you think this is a ghost book or something, right?"

"Uhh, yeah?" Pacifica replied uncertainly. "Isn't that what you guys do all the time?"

"Pffft!" Mabel blew a raspberry. "No! We only use that thing for hunting ghosts sometimes!"

"Then, like, what the heck is it even used for except for getting rid of ghosts and destroying people's lives?"

"Oh, I'm so glad you asked!" Dipper exclaimed, practically teleporting beside her. He tore open the book, rustling through the pages so fast that she wasn't even able to comprehend what was on each of them. "You see, the part I showed you back at the mansion was just a portion of the weird things that go on in this town!" He flipped though the pages again, stopping at a specific page. Examining the drawing, it seemed to look a lot like...some kind of cave? She really didn't know; she wasn't a nerd. Luckily, she had her own personal one to tell her (even if she didn't really care).

"According to the journal, this is called the Cavern of the Seasons." Dipper explained.

"Wow, very original name. You come up with that yourself?" Pacifica deadpans, rolling her eyes.

"Nah, Dipper can't come up with anything that good. I'm the creative one in the family." Mabel snickers, with Pacifica following soon after.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, you two." Dipper grumbled, an annoyed look in his eyes. He waited a few seconds longer for their giggling fit to die down before continuing. "So anyway, the cave is said to hide wind-spirits, which are these four horsemen who each control one of the four seasons. This cave is apparently one of the sanctuaries that they had, where they stow themselves away until they grow strong enough to overpower the horseman who controls the seasons at that time."

"That sounds pretty stupid. I thought it had to do with the turning of the planet or whatever."

"Yeah, but isn't it weird whenever it's really nice one day in Spring, and then the next day it starts to snow?" Dipper asked.

Pacifica pondered on that thought for a moment, unable to answer. Luckily, she didn't have to.

"That's because Winter and Spring are fighting to keep themselves in charge. It just so happens that their fighting changes the weather and can drop or raise the temperature rapidly! Isn't that so interesting?" Dipper exclaimed, a huge grin spread across his face.

Now normally, Pacifica would give her very honest opinion that his ideas were stupid and that of course she was right, because of science and that he was wrong and blah blah blah. Honestly, it made her sick to her stomach at how she acted before.

However, she had seen little people who controlled mini-golfing and had a ghost haunt her house that turned people into wood. At this point, she didn't know what was real or what wasn't anymore. Plus, she couldn't deny that his excitement was rubbing off on her a little.

"Yeah, I guess..." She answered awkwardly, unsure of how to respond.

Dipper's smile widened, his happiness easing Pacifica's nervousness slightly. "I know! It's so interesting!"

Pacifica sighed as she released the breath she didn't even know she was holding in. If this is what it took to be nice, then she was going to get wrinkles.

"Good job, Pazi! You gave him a compliment!" Mabel encouraged with a pat on her back.

"He's still a huge dork, though."

"Yeah, we know."

"Hey!"

"So why are we even going there, anyway?" Pacifica asked, curious as to why the twins even wanted to go to some weird cave in the first place.

Dipper and Mabel gave each other a glance, staring at each other for a few seconds, silently communicating to each other while the rich girl watched on in confusion.

"Well..." Mabel started, suddenly looking nervous. "There is no reason."

Pacifica blinked. Once. Twice.

"What."

It wasn't a question.

"I swear, I tried my best to look for someplace more interesting!" Dipper tried to explain, starting to sweat. "It was either this or some really boring lake in the east. There wasn't any other place we could go without us getting kidnapped by gnomes or attacked by manotaurs! Plus..." He fell silent for a moment, gazing towards his shoes with a downtrodden expression.

"I thought it'd be pretty cool to show you on our first adventure together..." He murmured, kicking the dirt in front of him.

Pacifica felt a pang of guilt as she noticed the boy's sudden change in mood. Her anger slowly dulled down to a simmer, before vanishing completely from her system. All Dipper was trying to do was find some place for their little group to go explore, and Pacifica was complaining because they didn't have a reason to go. Of course they didn't have a reason; they just wanted to have fun and go adventuring. That was what normal, poor kids were supposed to do, right? Go do things just for the sake of doing them? She didn't know; all she knew were fancy dinner parties and what colors went with what outfits.

Man, did it feel weird to actually like someone instead of hating their guts.

She hoped that she'd get used to it.

"Ok..." She responded quietly, barely audible.

Dipper looked up in surprise, somewhat confused by the response. "What?" He asked.

"Look, we can go to this stupid cave thing or whatever! I don't care!" Pacifica snapped suddenly, feeling a bit uncomfortable with all the attention being put on her. "Let's just hurry it up. My parents are expecting me back by sundown, and if I'm not back by then, they'll probably kill you..."

She trailed off, a small blush appearing on her face as she looked down to hide the growing heat from the two.

Dipper blinked, eyes widening just a little at the blonde girl's outburst. "O-okay, then..." He responded awkwardly, not sure how to continue after that. "Th-this way, I guess..."

He started on the way as his sister walked close to him, giving Pacifica a stern glare. It wasn't one filled with anger or sadness or confusion, however. It was just plagued with concern, thru and thru.

Pacifica didn't think much of it. They could think whatever they wanted about her right now. She just wanted to start going to this random cave before she curled into a ball from everyone looking at her.

She just hoped that it wouldn't take too long to get there.


End file.
